Draft:Tsenadegle

Tsenadegle (Tigrinya: ጸንዓደግለ, Saho: Sanʿadagle; sometimes anglicized as Tsenʿadegle, Ṣänʿadäglä, Tsena Degle, Zanadegle, Zanadagle) are a Tigrinya-speaking clan based in the Segeneiti subregion of the Southern region of Eritrea. Their largest settlement is Segeneiti and live in the villages of Adengefom, Degra-Libie, Akrur, Hebo, Adi Finie, Adi Kontsi and May Ela (the last five villages being collectively referred to as Siyah). Tsenadegle are further made up of smaller sub-clans with ruling families from each village, such as the Abeyti Kentebti from Segeneiti and Geza Meretta from Hebo.

They are a semi-nomadic and agro-pastoral people who also settle in the Agametta and Dengolo plains (Agambusa) near Ghinda and Gahtelai in the Northern Red Sea region with their herds. During the seasonal dry period from October to May, the Tsenadegle people traditionally migrate with their large herds of cattle to the lowlands while cultivating crops on their way down the fertile land of Agambusa which would be harvested on their way up the highlands during the wet summer season. This effective semi-nomadism for grazing land even reached as far east to the Togodel valley near Arkiko by the Red Sea coast prior to and during the Italian colonial period.

History

According to oral history, the Tsenadegle people descend from their founder Asghede, the son of Tsenai, who was one of the three sons of Akele (the other being Hadgai and Digna). Together with the De'Guzai clans in southern Eritrea, they made up the historic province of Akele Guzai in the mid-19th century. There is an alternative oral history narrated by Sahos that claims their common ancestry with the Taro'a clan acknowledged prior to their alleged conversion from Islam to Catholicism and their assimilation to the Habesha identity. The latter narrative contradicts the historical record about the Tsenadegle and appears to be premised on certain lineages found in Degra-Libie that have now been largely assimilated by the surrounding Tsenadegle; the Enda Tsellim, Enda Keyh, Enda Ga'atit and Enda Genzay. These lineages claim descent from a Saho (Reza Mara clan) named Ismail who married a local woman from the Tigrinya-speaking Engana clan.

Tsenadegle are first explicitly mentioned in a 14th century land grant from Emperor Dawit I of Ethiopia to the Debre Bizen Monastery where Tsenadegle land, along with the lands of the Saharti and Karnashim clans of Hamasien, would fall under the property of the monastery. However, land grants from King Tantawedem of Begwena (Zagwe) in the 11th century make references of a viceroy or autonomous ruler by the Red Sea coast bearing the title baḥər nägaśi ("King of the Sea"), a title Tsenadegle rulers would bear in the following centuries. During the mid-16th century Adal and Ottoman invansion of Ethiopia, the Tsenadegle along with the rest of the clans of Upper Bur sided with Emperor Gelawdewos of Ethiopia against the Ottomans and the rebellious Bahr Negus Yeshaq. After a failed invansion into Bur in 1559, the locals defeated Özdemir Pasha's army, killing the majority of them and beheaded the commander. The Tsenadegle would continue to support the Emperors Menas and Sarsa Dengel against the Ottomans and became largely autonomous by the late 16th century.

The autonomy of the Tsenadegle granted them freedom from paying taxes or serving in the Ethiopian army, and inasmuch as all caravan roads passed through their region, received tribute. They became exceedingly successful and elected their own käntiba Gilay Filippos (nicknamed Gilay Aziz) during the reign of Emperor Fasilides. He would be responsible for expanding their territory into the Agambusa lowlands reaching as far as Arkiko where the naibs were seated. According to the people of Massawa, the Turks rented this coastal territory captured by the Tsenadegle for a perpetual annuity of 12,000 talari in 1650. This rent continued to be paid to the Tsenadegle until 1842.

When Sabagadis Woldu's son Kahsay Sabagadis and Dejazmach Wube expanded their territory into modern-day Eritrea in 1832, the clans of Akele and De'Guzai were all subdued except for the well-armed Tsenadegle who alone were able to repel their raids. The peasantry of Akrur promoted the shum ʿaddi (chief) Feqre Iyasus who fought the invaders and adopted the title baḥər nägaśi after expanding his territory to Arkiko. He protected the Catholic missionary Giustino de Jacobis from Emperor Tewodros II in Akrur for several years where he built schools and converted much of the Tsenadegle, numbering roughly 800 adults by then. By the late 19th century, the Tsenadegle consisted of a population of at least 4000 people. In 1871, their Catholicism provoked the soon-to-be Emperor Yohannes IV to destroy the mission at the request of Abune Salama III to reimpose the bishop's authority by burning down the Catholic school at Segeneiti and stealing the cattle of the Tsenadegle. Another feud four years later with the family of Yohannes IV resulted in the death of two dozen imperial soldiers after a failed attempt to impose taxes on the locals. Even after the creation of the Italian Eritrea, the Tsenadegle alone were exempt from paying taxes during the reign of däjazmač Bahta Hagos.

Governance

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